The service took twenty-eight minutes. When the six pallbearers lifted Julian’s pine casket onto their shoulders, the gallery stood up in a single, unbroken motion, their wool sleeves rustling like dry corn husks. Outside on the asphalt apron, the three-man firing party from the VFW raised their rifles toward the gray overcast above the river, and the three volleys cracked sharp and flat against the basalt rimrock, the smoke hanging in the wet mountain air until the wind off the gorge carried it north toward the reservoir.
At noon, the legal aftermath began to set like wet lime in the county clerk’s basement annex.
Martha Corliss drove the station wagon down to the public administration building, parking three inches from the curb where the snow was already turning into gray slush. Captain Ross walked between us, carrying the brown paper dispatch folder that contained the terminal logs Wayne Keller had certified before our wheels left Seattle.
Dale Hennessey was not in the clerk’s office. He had caught the eleven-forty regional flight out of Pangborn back to Yakima, leaving his leather briefcase and three associate briefs sitting on the counter of the probate window. But Sterling Finch was still there.
He sat on a folding metal chair beneath the bulletin board where the county posted tax delinquent notices and sheriff's sales, flanked by two plainclothes investigators from the Washington State Patrol commercial vehicle division. The bay rum scent was gone, replaced by the sour smell of a man who had spent four hours in a courthouse holding cell watching his corporate shell company dissolve under a judicial signature.
Marcus Finch was brought through the glass side door fifteen minutes later, his wrists bare, his gate uniform stripped of its company epaulets and ID badge. Wayne Keller had personally accompanied the Port of Seattle transit detectives who drove him across the pass in an unmarked sedan. The young agent’s starched collar was wilted around his neck, and he kept his gaze glued to the linoleum floor, two steps behind the detective’s left shoulder.
Special Agent Kenneth Vance spread the Boise system logs across the long counter where the deed books were filed.
"Marcus Finch," the federal agent said, not looking up from the printed margins. "You have been advised of your rights under Title 18, Section 1030 of the United States Code regarding the intentional compromise of interstate flight manifest systems. Before the grand jury convenes in Spokane on Wednesday, the regional prosecutor has authorized a single opportunity for you to place your sworn statement on the civil record regarding the assignment of the luggage lien."
Marcus didn't speak for nearly a minute. His breath hitched once, a wet, rattling sound in the overheated basement office. Then he turned his head and looked at his uncle sitting on the metal chair.
"He told me the court would never verify the escrow receipt," Marcus whispered, the words coming out cracked and thin. "He said Julian had no direct heirs who knew how the irrigation stock was divided. He said if Arthur missed the call at ten o'clock, the forfeiture would execute automatically under the ninety-four co-op articles, and the carrier’s acquisition board would pay three hundred and twenty thousand dollars for the clear-zone easement before the winter freeze."
Sterling Finch did not look up from the floor. He tightened his fists in the pockets of his charcoal coat until the wool seams pulled taut against his knuckles, but he remained completely silent.
"He promised me forty thousand from the option payment," Marcus continued, his voice rising just enough to carry over the hum of the fluorescent fixtures. "He said the Boise terminal codes were cleared because Howard Corliss never filed a revocation before he died. He said an old man with a canvas bag wouldn't know the difference between a mechanical bump and a canceled routing slip."
Martha Corliss stepped up to the counter, took her fountain pen from her coat pocket, and laid it flat across the system printout.
"My father knew the difference, Marcus," Martha said with a cold, quiet weight that made the young man flinch. "And Julian Vance knew the difference when he paid twenty-four thousand dollars in cash to your mother across our kitchen table while you were still riding a yellow school bus to Cashmere High. You didn't steal an easement today. You tried to sell your own mother’s receipt twice."
Agent Vance took the typed confession sheet, slid it across to the young man, and pointed to the bottom margin. "Sign your full legal name, Marcus. Then Deputy Calder will process your transfer to the county detention center."
Marcus took the pen with fingers that shook so badly he could barely seat the nib against the paper. He signed his name, dropped the pen on the counter, and allowed the transit detective to take his arm and guide him through the frosted glass door toward the booking intake.
At two o’clock, Captain Ross walked with me back out through the courthouse portico. The sleet had stopped, leaving the asphalt wet and dark under an iron-colored sky. Across the avenue, the brick packing sheds of the Wenatchee valley sat in neat rows along the railroad spur, their corrugated metal roofs streaked with soot and old cedar moss.